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Since there's a moderator election about to happen here on sa.se, and since I've been wondering this in general for se sites... doesn't the word nomination seem inaccurate? Shouldn't it be labeled as something closer to "now accepting volunteers"?

If you're talking about other places that use that term, like a grammy nod (etc), a nomination is when someone proposes someone else's name/work/etc for an award or privilege.

All aspects of the system totally makes sense and works quite well, but am I the only one that thinks the terminology is a tad off?

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  • +1 agree - I have no problem with people throwing their own hat into the ring, but it seems to me that is more of a 'I'm running for moderator - vote for me'. Also, is it even possibile to nominate someone who isn't you? Feb 23, 2011 at 18:38

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There's nothing in the definition of nominate to suggest that one can't nominate oneself - it's quite a common usage.

On the other hand, it is a little odd in the sense that you can't nominate other people. This part actually did confuse me when the first elections began on other sites, especially since the less-formal pro-tem nominations were 3rd-party nominations.

Still, the word volunteer implies that anyone who wants the position can have it. Assuming there are more than 3 candidates, that won't be the case. This is an actual election, and in an election, the candidates are generally called nominees. It's meant to be analogous to a political election.

The only other word I can think of that would make sense is "bid" - and I think I just used it in a comment - but I can see why the SE team would shun it. It's kind of slang and might make no sense to non-Americans (or at least non-native English speakers).

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  • Exactly what I meant, about the "can't". The rest is immaterial, since I'm not proposing an actual change, so that was actually the main issue. Thanks for bringing it up.
    – zanlok
    Feb 8, 2011 at 19:59

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